I am going to write a series of posts focusing on some valuable TED Talks. Since I will publish them on Tuesdays, the series will be called TED Talk Tuesday! If you haven’t spent time exploring what’s available through TED, you really must! Start by browsing at this link! And if you have suggestions for me on talks I should include, please comment on one of the TED Talk Tuesday posts!!

This first TED Talk Tuesday post features my “takeaways” from a talk by Tom Hierick at TEDx Powell River, titled “I Am the Future.” Watch the entire talk yourself for the most motivation, but if you don’t have time, here are the points he made that were most relevant to me:

** The current circumstances of our students don’t determine where they will end up…just where they are starting. Our job as educators is to help them plot the course from where they are starting to where they want to end up.

**Every student is a story waiting to be told. The job of educators is to help them tell their stories.

**There is a Chinese proverb that says, “The one who plants a tree rarely gets to enjoy its shade. How does this apply to me as an educator?

**If kids come to us from strong, healthy, functioning families it makes our job easier. If they do not come to us from strong, healthy, functioning families, it makes our job more important.

**Kindness extended gets multiplied. be inspirational to someone.

**Everyday you have an opportunity to exert positive influence.

**What would you do if you knew you would not fail?

** In education, relationships are the most important thing. Connect first with the heart, and the head will follow.

I have a harder time making these kinds of meaningful connections with kids now that I am in a support role in our school district instead of having my own classroom. I hope to be intentional this coming year to get to know more kids personally and help them tell their stories!